The robot trotted forward, knocking against a stack of boxes that crashed to the floor.
Danvers whirled to see what was happening, firing off a shot at the robot. The machinery screamed in protest, and before I could think about what I was doing, I jumped at her, grabbing her gun arm. My hands slipped and slid on the fabric of her suit, searching for something to hold on to. I clutched at her wrist, the bones fragile as a bird’s but surprisingly strong. She bucked and struggled against me, using her free hand to beat at my face and push me off her.
I heard Max and Zella screaming, but I was too focused on the gun gleaming in her hand. I felt her tense beneath me, and then I was on my back, my head smacking into the cement floor. Stars danced across my vision.
Sirens shrieked in my ears. And in my head. With a physical thump inside my body, I felt the security system come online. I’d been right. Somehow our DNA had altered the vaccine enough that Max, Zella, Asher, and I were unaffected by it.
I blinked up into the muzzle of a gun, and beyond that, Danvers’ shocked face. Her eyes darted around the space before coming to rest on me. Her voice sounded like ground glass. “Where is Asher?”
But despite the danger we were still in, relief flooded through me, making my limbs go weak. He’d stopped the commandos and turned off the bomb.
Danvers snatched up the photon core from the floor and shoved it in her pocket as she scrambled to her feet, pointing the gun at me again. It trembled, as did her voice.
“Stay where you are, or there’ll be a bullet for each of you. And trust me, I won’t miss.”
I struggled upright, my head still pounding from the security system. The robot twitched and fizzled on the floor beside me. The room swayed, and I locked my knees to stay on my feet.
“It’s over, Dr. Danvers. You might shoot one of us, but if all three of us rush you, we’ll still take you down.” I glanced at Max and Zella, and they both nodded.
The coldness in her eyes made me shiver. “I have too much at stake to let you stop me now.”
She took a step toward the door, aimed her gun at Max.
Pulled the trigger.
Zella screamed and pushed him out of the way. Her body jerked as the bullet hit her leg in a puff of blood, and she dropped to the floor.
“No!” Max’s roar shook my eardrums, but Danvers was already out the door. Instead of chasing after her, I rushed to Zella. Max had already cradled her head in his lap, his hands shaking as he brushed her hair back from her face. “Your sweater, Lexie! We need to stop the bleeding.”
I ripped it off and threw it at him. “I need to go after Danvers.”
Max shook his head. “Just let her go.”
“But Max!” I took three steps toward the door.
“Lexie. Trust me.” He yanked his phone from his pocket and handed it over, still using his other hand to press my sweater to Zella’s leg.
She moaned, but I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“The remote detonator is installed on the photon core.”
My knees went weak. “But it will kill her.”
“And you have a problem with this? She shot Zella.” Max glared at me and then, like a switch was flipped, smiled down at Zella reassuringly. He caressed her cheek again. “Hang on. We’re going to get help.”
Zella’s eyes were glazed with pain, but she still managed a nod.
“What happened? What did I miss?” Asher asked, sprinting into the room.
I let out a sigh of relief and threw myself into his arms. “You did it?”
He nodded. “I stopped the bomb and freed the scientists. Our security guards are rounding up the immobilized commandos. But the fix didn’t stop Danvers.”
I glanced down at Max and Zella. At the detonator in my hand.
“Go,” Max said. “I’ll get Z upstairs to the medical wing.” He stooped and picked her up in his arms as gently as he would a baby. Zella moaned, her head lolling against his shoulder.
I squeezed his shoulder. “Thanks, Max.”
“Kick her ass for me.”
I gave him a wicked grin. “She doesn’t stand a chance.”
Asher grabbed my hand, and we raced toward the elevator bank. There wasn’t time for stairs. We just had to make it to the main floor before Danvers escaped. With the scientists free, there had to be someone around to stop her. Except they didn’t know she’d betrayed them all. My pulse sounded like hammers in my skull, and I tapped my foot as we rose through the facility.
Division Six.
Five.
Four.
Finally, we reached the lobby and stopped short. Hundreds of scientists milled around the frozen statues of commandos. They touched the Branston soldiers, shook their heads, looking confused. My dad pushed through the crowds in his wheelchair trying to reassure them, and Dr. Rosen did the same across the room.
QT security guards were everywhere, and I shoved past the scientists to reach one standing near the door.
“Have you seen Danvers?” I demanded.
He shook his head. “We’re searching the building right now. She won’t get out with the lockdown protocols in place.”
I craned to see past the guard out to the parking lot where two of the Branston helicopters had already disappeared. The third sat at the far end of the lot, the blades slowly spinning up. My breath froze in my lungs as I spotted a dark shadow sprinting toward it.
“Damn it. You’re too late!” I pushed past him and tried to shove open the door. It didn’t budge. I rattled the handle and pounded against the glass. “Let me out. We have to stop her!”
The security guard shook his head, peering out into the darkness beside me. “I can’t. We’re still locked down.”
Asher pulled Max’s phone from my grip. He stared at me, the question I didn’t want to answer burning in his eyes.
I turned away. “No.” The word was only a whisper, a breath of air against the window, but I couldn’t let him kill her. No matter what she’d done, what she was planning to do, there had to be another way.
He pulled me to him, speaking against my hair so no one else would hear. “Lexie, we have to. If she escapes, they’ll figure out the plans in Branston’s system are wrong. She’ll come after us and our families. We don’t have a choice.”
I couldn’t put my family at risk again. Or Asher and my friends. I nodded.
But before Asher could even turn the phone on, the night exploded.
The roar shook the building and shattered the safety glass on one of the windows. It cracked into a web of a million pieces, glowing orange and refracting the light from the flaming helicopter into a dancing kaleidoscope. The scent of burning metal and gas filled the air, the heat from the flames reaching us even through the doors.